will make things worse. with me now, steve perlesteen for "the washington post" and jim tankersly, economics correspondent for "the national journal." gentlemen, this is still a pretty ugly economy out there. during the whole debt ceiling issue, debate, we saw jobs, you know, job numbers basically be stagnant, unemployment rate go up. >> and big -- >> and the gdp number, the output number and then the manufacturing index, a pretty good index, actually, basically flat lining, meaning not growing, not shrinking. >> right on the line of recession, versus no recession. >> what is going on? a couple of things you need to remember. number one, government doesn't control the economy. we get into these debates and think the dials in washington, just get them right, the economy will -- doesn't work that way. and government has an effect at the margin, but at this point, the major thing going on is the thing that has been going on for the last three years. we had an economy that was much too big. people in the wrong places with the wrong skills, too many office buildings, too many stores, too many com
